One would think
would make the right to non-violent protest pretty cut and dried, particularly since the SCOTUS ruled the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause applies the First Amendment (and most of the Bill of Rights) to state and local governments, not just the federal government. One would, however, be wrong; the biggest complication, it seems to me, is that the First Amendment says nothing of a right to peaceably assemble on public land. US law has long recognized local governments authority to require permits for "peaceable assemblies" in public areas. Preventing most protests is thus as simple as the Founding Fathers intended the right of protest to be: A local government opposed to a protest need only deny all permit applications for it, making any subsequent public protests illegal the moment police order protesters to disperse.

One can stand in their front yard yelling, or rent an auditorium where 50,000 of their closest friends can join them, but it is illegal to block Main Street (or Wall Street) without a permit. That is why abortion protesters get arrested for literally blockading clinics by "occupying" the sidewalks leading to them. I would prefer the law allowed public group protests provided they did not interfere with other people conducting their lives as they chose, but believe OWS would be SOL in that case, too. Those who seek confrontation with authorities rarely seek in vain.